Venezuela 2013 Presidential Elections Today

Around 19 million Venezuelans are called to the polls today to choose between acting president, Nicolas Maduro, and opposition leader Henrique Capriles as successor to Hugo Chavez, who died in October after being re-elected for the period 2013-2019 .

After concluding on Thursday a strong and unprecedented campaign just ten days dominated by the pervasiveness and tribute to the figure of Chávez, the two candidates, who toured the country tirelessly making several rallies a day, urged on Friday to get out and vote massively.

“Democracy mobilized (…) everyone to vote, from early, no excuse for not going to vote,” said Maduro.

We are “calling on all Venezuelans to vote with our participation is to build the motherland”, said Capriles.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) on Friday installed 39,322 polling stations in the 13,638 polling stations across the country, on a day with little developed “contingencies” and support troops, said Tibisay Lucena.

The voting will be electronic and nationwide is estimated that each voter about a minute delay in exercising their right, so that the CNE plans to issue a first bulletin at about 8.30 pm (Costa Rica) provided that ” the results are irreversible, “said Lucena.

In this regard, the government candidate, Nicolas Maduro, said that if he loses the presidential election results accepted, but immediately added that he had “a hunch very positive” about the outcome of the elections.

Meanwhile the opposition accused the CNE of impartiality and not regulate the use of state resources by Maduro.

To monitor the conduct of the elections will be present 40 delegates from Unasur accompanying the electoral process, and another 130 delegates representing, among others, Mercosur, the OAS, the Carter Center and CELAC.

However, the head of the electoral accompaniment mission of UNASUR, Argentine Carlos Alvarez said Friday that Venezuela’s electoral system is “high reliability” and warrants the “secret ballot”.

In turn, more than 140,000 military ensure security during the vote and move and guard the more than 46,000 voting machines to be used during the process.